1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an amusement device in the form of a tower for elevating participants to a high elevation and providing such participants with a means affording a rapid, oscillating descent.
2. Description of the Related Art
There appear to be no prior patents which are significantly similar to the instant invention.
Three patents, however, bear some relationship to the instant invention--U.S. Pat. Nos. 857,338; 2,111,303; and 2,221,215.
The first two of these patents--U.S. Pat. No. 857,338 by inventor Arden S. Fitch and U.S. Pat. No. 2,111,303 by Stanley Switlik--describe towers which elevate and then release parachutes which can be attached to a load or participant. The descent may be guided by a cable or may be unrestrained.
The third patent--U.S. Pat. No. 2,221,215 by inventor Lee U. Eyerly--is somewhat more related to the instant invention in that it produces vertical oscillations of a participant through the use of "resilient members"--either rubber bands or springs. The participant, however, rides in a car, a rigid portion of which is maintained inside a slotted track of the supporting tower.
An unpatented activity, i.e., "bungee jumping" is, however, closest to the present invention. In this sport a participant ascends a tower, walks onto a bridge, is hoisted in a basket by a tower crane, or is lifted aloft in the gondola of a hot air balloon with resilient bands, i.e., "bungee cords", tied to the participant's body and to the tower, bridge, basket, or gondola. The participant then leaps from the bridge, tower, basket, or gondola and, because of the interactions between the force of gravity and the elastic force of the bands, undergoes a series of basically vertical oscillations. Dampening produced by air friction and losses of energy within the bands causes the oscillations to cease within a relatively short period of time. The participant must then release the bands and devise some method for descending to the ground or water that is below the participant or ascending to the tower, bridge, basket, or gondola.
Although bungee jumping adds oscillations to the descent one experiences from a tower for parachutes and enhances the participant's freedom of motion as compared to the device disclosed in Eyerly's U.S. Pat. No. 2,221,215, it requires a substantial amount of time after the oscillations cease before the participant and equipment can be readied for a repeat of the experience. The bulk of this time is consumed by the aforementioned ascents and descents subsequent to the oscillatory phase.
A common method for the ascent is climbing a rope to the tower, bridge, basket, or gondola. If the participant first descends from the tower or bridge, the participant must then individually climb the tower or the banks of the river or ravine below the bridge. And if the participant descends from the balloon, the balloon must then land and thereafter again ascend to an appropriate elevation--a not insignificant task considering the limited maneuverability of a hot air balloon.
This problem of time has been only partially solved especially in Australia, through the use of the tower crane which raises the participant to permit the initial leap and which can lower the participant after the oscillations have subsided.
Such a limited solution to the problem of rapid repeatability, though, provides no resolution to the substantially more serious problems of the participant's plummeting to the surface of the earth if there is an equipment failure, being strangled if the band loops around the participant's neck during the oscillations, and being scraped or bruised by the band during the oscillatory phase.